


After Action Reports

by Thalius



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blue Team - Freeform, Canon Disabled Character, Drinking, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Human-Covenant War, Kissing, Multi, Nightmares, ODST Orbital Drop Shock Trooper(s), One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tumblr Prompt, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-10 17:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 14,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19511278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalius/pseuds/Thalius
Summary: A collection of prompts from tumblr for various halo characters and pairings.





	1. Buck + "Taco"

**Author's Note:**

> I have a decent backlog of stuff from tumblr that I still need to post here. I'll leave the shorter pieces on tumblr, but if you'd like to follow me or my writing, you can find me [here](https://sledposting.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> Relationships and prompts will be reflected in chapter titles and updated in the tags as more are posted.

He parked his ass on the gravel beside the little girl and held out his hand. “Like this,” he said, folding his palm upwards to demonstrate. “Squish the food together.”

“Why?” she asked, poking at the stiff tortilla shell that had flopped open on her paper plate again.

“So you can taste all the ingredients at once,” he replied, then reached towards her plate. “Can I show you?”

She offered it to him. He tried to handle the tortilla as little as possible as he folded it, aware of how not clean his hands were. He’d washed up after the firefight, but they all still had a good layer of grime coating them from the ash and dust that had been kicked up in the commotion. 

“There,” he said, passing it back to her. “Keep your hand around it and it’ll stay together.”

“Okay.” She put her hand over top of the shell to keep it from opening so she could look up at him. “What does ingredients mean?”

“Oh.” He frowned, wondering why the simple question suddenly seemed difficult. “It’s like… the different parts of your meal. And they’re all inside the shell. Which you need to hurry up and eat, because medical is gonna be here soon and we’ll have to move.”

She shoved the taco into her mouth at his insistence, and he used the excuse of retying the laces of his boot to look away. She looked way too much like his sister’s kids, and he was acutely aware of just how long ago his last–and final–visit had been. The beach shells they’d given him on that last visit were pressing into his collarbone beside his tags, and he shrugged his shoulders to adjust them. 

“This is gross,” he heard her say, and forced himself to look back at the girl. The shell was open again on her plate, which she’d plunked onto the ground.

“It’s the fanciest I could come up with,” he replied. “Not a lot around right now.”

“I have food in my house,” she said. “Good food.”

He shook his head. “We need to stay here, so eat your gross taco. We can get you some candy when the Pelican arrives for evac.” It was an easier response than telling her that her house was gone. He’d let the medical staff and the counselors take care of those unpleasant conversations.

“What’s evac?”

“Evacuation.”

“What’s evacua–”

His helmet beside him hissed as the comm came to life, and he held up a finger. “Hold that thought. Yeah?” he said into the chin mic.

 _“Pelican’s five minutes out and everything’s packed. We’re just waiting for you to get done with your picnic with Sally over there,”_ came Romeo’s voice through the speaker.

“My name is Hisa,” she said indignantly, and he shook the held out finger at her.

“Then re-check everything, or at least look like you’re doing something. We’ll head over shortly.”

 _“Learned from the best,”_ Romeo replied, then cut the line. 

“Okay, kid,” he said, looking back to Hisa. “Last chance to eat that.”

“I don’t want it.” She picked at the edge of the paper plate, which was frayed from the gravel and her rough handling. “Are we the only ones going?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he told her. No point in lying. “Yeah, we’re the only ones.”

“Can I come back?”

Buck stood up and dusted the gravel from his pants and shoved on his helmet, then picked her up by the armpits and slung her around his hip. “No. Not for a while, anyway.”

Her chin wobbled at that, but she didn’t cry. Figuring the morning she’d just had, he was impressed with her resolve. She wrapped a pale, dirty arm around his waist and grabbed a hold of a strap on his gear to keep it in place. He left her plate and set off towards the LZ, making sure not to jostle her around too much.

“Evacuation,” she said again, and she looked even more like his niece did this close up. “What’s it mean?”

“It means leaving,” he replied, grateful for the polarized visor of his helmet.


	2. Kelly + Duty & Honour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Blue Team Week on tumblr.

“You got anything, Blue-Four?”

 _“Negative.”_ Linda sounded even more curt than usual. _“Again.”_

“Aye,” Kelly sighed, sending her a green status light in a consolatory gesture. She peered over the crest of hard earth and out towards the research facility. The only other member of Blue Team in sight was John, who was turned towards the southern edge of the complex, staring out at the desert. She allowed herself to watch him for a moment before turning away and skidding downhill. One hundred twenty-two more paces and she’d complete her third perimeter check of the construction site around the facility. The most interesting thing she’d seen had been a weird burrowing lizard that had squawked at her as she passed by its nest, and she was tempted to go disturb it on purpose now, if only to give her something to do.

 _“Order’s will get here soon,”_ Chief assured them over TEAMCOM. _“Just have to be patient.”_

Kelly didn’t bother to remind him he’d said that two hours ago. Instead, she made sure the sparse outcropping of desert scrub-bush nearby wasn’t housing any hidden Covenant battalions and leaned against the closest rock when she confirmed she was alone. Her helmet did an excellent job of filtering out any dust from the planet’s atmosphere, but the air was still dry as all hell. She pulled up the lip of her helmet and downed the contents of the water pouch from her hip compartment, sighing again when it was empty. Exhaustion and boredom were a really bad combination while deployed, and she was starting to run low on ideas of how to remedy either of them.

Kelly took a few minutes to rest and eventually saw Fred circle around to her position from the other direction. She nodded to him in greeting when he got close, and his helmet dipped forward in reply.

“You good?” He asked over a private frequency.

She waggled the empty water canteen in her hand. “Just having a quick pit stop.”

“We should start taking shifts if this keeps up.” His visor turned towards the facility, which was obstructed by cresting hills and thick fencing from where they stood. “It’s dangerous to be going this long without a proper rest.”

It was subtle, and if she wanted to she could easily ignore it, but the hint of disapproval in his voice made her bristle. “Chief knows what he’s doing, sir.”

Fred lifted up his own helmet to take a drink of water, and the copper tint of his visor cast a ruddy glow over his face. He looked painfully old in the harsh desert light, and her heart clenched. “I don’t doubt that he does,” Fred replied, capping his water.

“But?”

“But he’s being reckless,” he finished, giving her a measured look. “Navy’s got more Spartans now than they know what to do with. Enough that we can take a day to rest without the galaxy blowing up.”

She gave him a tired smirk. “Someone’s got to set an example for the Fours, though, don’t they?”

He slid his helmet back down, but not before she saw the responding smile. “Suppose you’re right.”

_“Blue-Three, report.”_

“All clear, sir,” Fred responded immediately, switching back to TEAMCOM. The accusation and the uncertainty in his voice was gone—he just sounded calm now, if a bit weary. “Permission for Kelly and I to head back?”

_“Affirmative. Perimeter can’t get much more secure than this.”_

They made their way back around, following the path Kelly had stamped smooth with all their walking. They’d meet up with Linda and John and then they'd… wait for orders. Her nose wrinkled at the thought.

“Chief’s tired, too,” she said to Fred behind her. “He’s just being productive with it.”

“Was that an insult, Petty Officer?”

“I’m not the one gossiping about Team Leader in the bushes.”

Fred snorted in lieu of replying, but he sounded like his old self again, and she relaxed. The transition back to Chief being Blue Leader hadn’t been seamless, and even though the Lieutenant had been quick to relinquish control of Blue Team back to John, she knew he was still adjusting. They all were, really. And Fred’s reservations about the intensity of their deployments were coming from a good place, even if she didn’t like having sidebar conversations about John while on duty. Even _if_ she agreed with everything Fred was saying.


	3. Fred/Veta + Stargazing

“Aren’t you cold?”

The view of his loosely clasped hands hanging between his legs came back into focus at the sound of the Inspector’s voice. He looked over his shoulder and squinted at the light pouring out of the prefab medical building, seeing Lopis’ form cast into sharp relief against the harsh fluorescence.

“Not really,” he replied, but shoved his hands into the pockets of the sweater he’d been given.

The door closed and her features became visible again in the softer light of the overhead lamps and stars beyond. She sat down beside him on the stairs, rubbing her hands together and puffing breath into her palms. He watched the warmth curl out into wisps between her fingers and roll up lazily into the night air. Fred inhaled deeply and enjoyed the sharp impact the chill had on his lungs; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d tasted air so crisp or clean.

“Do you always argue with nurses about taking care of yourself?” Lopis asked, grinning over her cupped hands.

“I didn’t want a parka,” he said a little defensively, rolling his shoulders under the thick sweater the lead nurse had more or less forced him into. “They’re too loud.”

“Loud?”

“The material of the coat. I don’t like the sound of it.”

“Suit yourself,” Lopis said, burrowing deeper into her own coat—which wasn’t a parka either, he noted, but decided against mentioning it. “How’s your leg?”

He stretched it out on the stairs at her question, testing the joint in his knee and wincing. “Good as it can be. The cold helps.”

“The nurse said—”

“Don’t keep it locked in one position for more than thirty minutes,” he finished for her, earning him a resigned look. “You may not think so, Inspector, but I do try to keep myself in working order.”

“Plenty of jobs out there that make that goal a lot easier.”

“Maybe I’ll put in for a transfer,” he answered, and relished the smile that earned from her.

Lopis leaned back on her elbows and looked up at the sky. “Could work with my ferrets,” she mused, breath puffing out. “I think you’d make a good spy.”

“My second career choice after Spartan.”

“Solid back-up.”

“Always thought so.”

They fell silent after that, and so he looked up at the sky with her instead. Despite the ample snow coating the ground and ice dripping long spikes down every horizontal surface it could find, the skies looked as clear as the air felt. Stars blotted the black night, broken up only by the planet’s satellites orbiting slowly overhead. It was quiet, too; the open expanse of tundra and rocky desert extended outwards for kilometres in most directions. At this latitude they were far past the treeline, and so the only vegetation he could spot was the occasional hardy shrub, heavily burdened by newly fallen snow and struggling to keep itself upright. There were no ship engines humming or people talking or consoles beeping. It tugged on memories of Big Horn River and cold dirt on his cheek and the smell of pine trees. He felt his chest tighten at the thought of home.

“Haven’t done this in a while,” he whispered, mostly to fill the silence.

“Stargaze?” Lopis asked.

He nodded. “Not since I was a kid. Before the war started.”

“Reminds me of home, too,” she said, and he tore his gaze away from the sky to look at her. There was a soft, sad smile tugging at her mouth, which only made his chest constrict further. “Not quite as cold, though.”

He blew out an amused breath, only somewhat forced. “Summers were warm on Reach,” he replied. “But the winters got pretty brutal. Never minded it much, though.”

Lopis paused at his words for a moment before responding. “It’s okay, you know. To miss it.”

The comment caught him off guard. She gave him the same warm, honest expression he’d seen her use on the Gammas whenever she was trying to teach them something. He forced a smile and found it easier than he thought it would be. “Yeah. Remembering isn’t so much the hard part. It’s the remembering it _falling_ that’s a lot less pleasant.”

“Well,” Lopis said, considering his reply. “I helped you nuke mine, so I can’t say I don’t empathise.”

“Suppose so,” he murmured.

His gaze drifted back to the stars, and he felt Lopis shift closer to him on the stairs. His body tensed up without his permission at her proximity, an automatic defense against a threat that wasn’t there. He forced himself to relax as her shoulder bumped with his, and looked down at her outstretched palm. It was even less than a threat; it was an offering.

“But,” she continued, voice low and quickly stolen away by the wind. “We can at least miss home together.”

He retracted his hand from his pocket. The skin was pink from the cold and about twice the size of hers. He remembered the hug she’d given him; remembered how he’d tensed up then, too.

Fred slipped his hand into hers and felt her squeeze his fingers through her gloves. Lopis exhaled, almost like a sigh of relief, and tipped her head up to the night sky. He followed her, soaking in the light of the stars and moons. His palm burned pleasantly in her grasp, the warmth radiating all the way up his arm and into his chest, settling in his belly. He closed his eyes, carefully cataloging this moment into memory, and the light of the stars burned bright against the inside of his lids.


	4. Palmer/Lasky + Stargazing

Being given the rank of Commander might not have come with the usual pay raise or, well, _actual_ change in her title, but it did give her access to the officer’s lounge, which meant she also had access to the stash of liquor and chocolate hidden away there, too. Before she’d been given command of the Spartan complement and before Lasky had been CO, _and_ before Osman had decided to put both of their names on the ONI naughty list, Palmer had heard fables of contraband scotch and soju and arak stored in the officer’s lounge, and for once in her life scuttlebutt hadn’t disappointed her. She even did her part to keep it stocked, though down in the pit with Spartans and NCOs usually didn’t yield anything more cultured than gasoline-flavoured vodka and the occasional reefer brownie. Still, life—specifically _aqua vitae_ —found a way.

One look at the seventy-six different reports she had to finish by the end of the calendar week had sent her shuffling off towards the lounge in her off-duty sweats in the small hours of the morning—or night, she hadn’t decided—in the hopes of finding something strong enough to stop her from clenching her teeth and giving herself a tension headache. She had to work extra hard to outpace her updated metabolism and superhuman liver enough to feel more than a light buzz, but she was confident she could put the work in.

Palmer quickly arrived at the threshold of the lounge and keyed open the door. When the doors didn’t immediately part, she looked up towards the ceiling.

“Lasky has requested the lounge to himself,” Roland supplied, anticipating her question.

“He’s in there alone?”

“Correct.”

“What’s he doing?”

“My guess is trying to increase his risk for osteoporosis, from the way he’s standing.”

Palmer sighed and knocked on the metal door, using Tom’s usual two-one-two knuckle wrap. “It’s me,” she called, wondering if he could even hear her.

There was a pause, and then she heard him speaking very faintly—probably to Roland. The door eventually opened after a moment and she stepped into the lounge. She found Lasky facing away from her, staring out of the small window at the stars and resting his arms on the spine of a couch. She also noticed an open bottle of whiskey and an empty tumbler sitting on a nearby table. Apparently she hadn’t been the only one with the brilliant plan on getting sloshed before doing work.

She walked over to him and squeezed his shoulder, noting that he hadn’t changed out of his uniform. She felt him immediately lean into her palm and sigh, bowing his head between his outstretched arms. “What are you doing up this late?” she asked, making sure to speak quietly.

He shrugged and raised a hand up to his face, rubbing at his eyes. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“I could’ve worn you out,” she replied with a grin. When all he did was shake his head and not look at her, she frowned. “Tom?”

“Just—bad dreams, that’s all.”

“You didn’t change.”

“Fell asleep at my desk.”

She put a hand on his arm and pulled at it gently, trying to peel him away from whatever thousand-yard stare he was zoning into. He finally turned to look at her, and she pulled him up away from the back of the couch. “Come sit with me.”

She didn’t bother to give him an option to say no and walked them around to the other side of the sofa. She pulled the cushions off and laid them on the floor, and that seemed to break Lasky out of his stupor. “What are you doing?”

“Making a comfortable place to sit.” Palmer indicated a cushion on the floor. “Go on.”

He complied, though she suspected it was more out of resigned confusion than an actual desire to sit down. He wobbled on the way down, and she remembered the whiskey still sitting out. “And wait there,” she added, making sure he was stable in his seat. “I’ll get you water and crackers.”

“I’m fine,” he objected, but she was already moving towards the small kitchenette in the lounge. She heard him grumble about it as she fixed him up a glass of water and dry crackers, but he fell silent by the time she sat back down next to him.

“There,” she said, handing him the napkin full of crackers and the cup of water. “Breakfast of champions.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered, looking at his watch. “I should be waking up in an hour.”

“So hurry up and finish that.”

Palmer looked towards the window as Lasky numbly munched on his crackers. Her plan was now thoroughly botched, but she supposed sitting with Tom was a decent back-up. Or it _should_ be, but he was acting very unlike his regular self, and it was doing nothing to calm her nerves.

“Thanks,” Tom said around the mouth of his cup, draining the water in one pull. “I kinda zoned out.”

“Someone on this ship has to act like they know what they’re doing,” she replied, and that got a small smile out of him. “It’s sad that _I’m_ your back-up, though.”

“What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

She shrugged. “Too much paperwork. I wanted a drink to make things more interesting, but then I found you.”

“Oh. Sorry I foiled your plan.”

“I’ve suffered through worse disappointments.” She took his cup and empty napkin and set them aside, then shifted on the cushions to face him properly. “And I should be asking _you_ that question.”

He sighed and looked out of the window. “Like I said, bad dreams.”

“Must have been pretty shitty to make you come all the way here.”

“I dreamt about CAMS,” he murmured, looking at her with sad, tired eyes. “Don’t know why. I haven’t in a really long time. Maybe since the Chief’s here. I don’t know.”

Palmer held back a wince. She’d never gotten the full story—or even a big part of it, really—on his history at Corbulo, but she had seen the chain of tags and old mementos he always kept in is pants pocket. She hadn’t tried to pry that kind of thing out of him, and he’d never offered an opportunity to discuss it in any great detail.

“So _really_ shitty dreams,” she concluded. He nodded and rested his head against the arm of the couch behind him.

“Yeah.”

She watched him close his eyes and couldn’t bear how exhausted he looked, so she reached out and wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling him in tight against her and curling herself around him. He didn’t even resist her or try to insist that everything was _fine_ and that he was just _tired_ , and _that_ really freaked her the hell out.

“I can take you back to your quarters,” she said into his hair, suddenly desperate to offer him even some small solution.

“No,” he replied. “I like your arrangement here.”

She nodded. She felt him shift around, trying to get comfortable, so she pulled them down to lay on the cushions. It had the dual effect of allowing her to more completely wrap herself around him while also giving them a good view of the stars outside, and Lasky relaxed himself into her much larger frame. She heard a breath escape him, like a sigh or a sob, she couldn’t tell, but the trembling lines of tension in his body were loosening up in a way that the whiskey had failed to accomplish. She squeezed him close and heard him laugh almost silently.

“Thanks,” he whispered to her, his hand slipping into hers. “Again.”

“Anytime,” she replied. “You looked like you were about to fall apart.”

“Seems to be happening too often lately. Can’t see how Del Rio managed to keep it together.”

“If Del Rio ever cared a fraction as much as you did about everything, he’d have melted through the grates on the bridge a long time ago.”

Tom laughed at that, a genuine sound that made _her_ finally relax. He sounded like he was coming back into himself again.

“All this’ll cost you is a few drinks,” she continued, squeezing his fingers. “You robbed me of a perfectly good drinking binge.”

“It’s against regs to drink on the ship, you know.”

It was her turn to laugh. She pressed her smile into his hair, and they fell silent as they stared out at the stars. They’d both have to haul ass back to their posts in about fifteen minutes, but for now she’d enjoy this small slice of sanity with Tom.


	5. Fred/Veta + Confession/Declaration

She could hear her mother’s voice very clearly ringing in her ears, telling her not to chew on her nails. _Helps with stress,_ she’d always come back with.

_Then don’t do stressful things so often. You’ll get ulcers._

Lopis wasn’t sure about the ulcers part, but being shoved into a storage container probably counted as a stressful situation. Her eyes flicked to the chronometer on her helmet’s HUD. Two hours down… six to go.

The Gammas’ BiOS readings were set to ping randomly to minimise signal detection, and comm chatter was set to a minimum. She’d been granted access to TEAMCOM, at least, but Spartans didn’t talk much on missions. She usually liked the quiet to help her think, but staring at the dark corner of the storage box wasn’t giving her a lot of nice or productive things to think about. And she was chewing her nails again.

She shoved her helmet down, covering her mouth, and closed her eyes. The illumination from her visor provided a dim illusion of light beyond her lids, and it made the space around her feel less small. Counting to ten or doing those breathing exercises Linda had told her about didn’t do anything to lower her heart rate, but it gave her something to think about that wasn’t _I’m going to be stuck in a small, dark box for eight hours._

 _“Radio check,”_ Fred’s voice came in through her earpiece, still as strong as it had been twenty minutes ago.

“Roger,” she replied. “You moving the load now?”

 _“Yes. Might get some interference while we move you below deck.”_ There was a pause as the mic clicked off. _“How are you doing?”_

“Same shit, different day.”

_“Sorry?”_

“I’m fine,” she clarified, smiling. “I’m still good to go.”

 _“Glad to hear it.”_ Another pause, and he sounded hesitant when he spoke again. _“But… readouts say you’re pretty keyed up.”_

“Eight hours in a box will do that to people.”

_“Still got six more.”_

“I said I—” Lopis stopped herself and sighed. The impulse to bite back was tempting to give into, but Fred wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t make sure everyone was okay. “We crawled through a cave for like twelve hours before. This is a cakewalk compared to that.”

She heard him chuckle on the other end of the line. _“I think it was fourteen hours, actually.”_

“Even more so, then.”

_“Remember we’ll lose contact as soon as you board. You and the Gammas will be on your own on the ship.”_

“I know. We’ll get it done.”

 _“New intel packet I sent you. Updated patrols.”_ She heard him exhale into the mic. _“A few Hunter pairs are on board. They just arrived.”_

She cringed at the thought of them as she opened the file. Towers of angry worms with cannons for hands. Sounded like a cheap monster thriller, but her bar for the unorthodox had been set perilously high the moment she’d signed up with ONI. She’d never seen a Hunter in person, and hoped very much she could maintain that degree of separation. “Got any sage Spartan advice for dealing with those?”

_“Stay the hell away from them. Let the Gammas handle them if you do run into a pair.”_

“Great,” she breathed.

_“And shoot them in the back.”_

The line cut and the container suddenly rattled, and she wondered if that would be the last thing she’d hear from Blue Team before they entered the ship. Lopis grabbed for her pistol and seated her hand on the grip, trying to slow her breathing. They could get this done. Stowing away on ships was almost a regular day in the office for them by now. And they had SPI armour this time around, so she wouldn’t have to worry about her Ferrets taking rounds wearing nothing but standard marine BDUs. Or worse, civilian disguises.

She counted backwards from one hundred and clenched her teeth as the container shuddered. Lopis shoved her glove back on, wincing in annoyance as her ragged nails caught on the fabric of her SPI glove.

 _“Radio check.”_ Fred’s voice came in through a crackle of comm static.

“Weak but readable,” she responded.

_“… be inside in four minutes, and then you’re on your own until… comms from the ship up and running.”_

She nodded her head even though he couldn’t see her. “Okay.”

_“And Lopis—”_

“Yes?”

_“Keep yourself safe. Be a shame if you didn’t come back.”_

She bit her lip, holding back a smile as her face heated. “You having this pep talk with the Gammas, too?”

_“Don’t need to. They already know how to follow orders.”_

“Oh, is that an order then?”

 _“Correct.”_ The line fuzzed as Fred switched comms, and she heard him talking over TEAMCOM to Kelly and Linda. She realised then that he’d opened a private frequency with her. She looked up at the status light for the three bands she had open; one TEAMCOM, one for her Ferrets, and the final one with Fred. It winked green as his voice came through again.

_“Loading you on now.”_

“Once more unto the breach,” she muttered.

_“‘Stiffen the sinews, summon the blood; disguise fair nature with hard favour’d rage’.”_

She raised a brow, though somehow a Spartan knowing Shakespeare didn’t surprise her. “Didn’t know you were a poet.”

 _“I’m not. Just have a good memory. And King Henry gives good advice.”_ He cleared his throat, his voice turning gruff. _“We’ll see you in a few hours.”_

“Let’s hope so.”

_“If you ever decide to finally follow orders… now would be a good time.”_

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

_“I mean it, Lopis. You’re a good friend.”_

“That’s quite the decl—” She was interrupted by more rumbling movement around her. She braced her palms against the walls of the container as it was tilted back and forth to be wedged into the transport. The status lights of the comm bands dimmed and flickered as the interference kicked in.

She checked the Gammas’ BiOS and comm strength. They’d all be able to communicate inside the transport, but any incoming signals from the UNSC would be blocked to maintain secrecy. A final message from the lieutenant flickered onto her HUD, a simple two-word text message:

_Good luck._

_Thanks, friend,_ she sent back, and then the two bands connecting her to Blue Team went dead.

Lopis breathed in slowly and exhaled. They could do this. They _would_ do this. And she’d follow Fred’s orders despite the gut reaction to rebel against any kind of military command structure, if only so she could rib him about it when they got back.


	6. Fred/Veta + Height Differences

“I don’t really know how to do this.”

Veta was content to keep her face pressed into the warmth of his shirt for the next hour, but she pulled away from him enough to look up at his face—which at this angle was a strain on her neck. He smiled down at her crookedly, looking unsure of himself.

She flashed a reassuring smile back at him, placing a hand on his chest. “We don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to. I’m perfectly fine with our current set up.”

“No, I mean—” he pulled an arm away to gesture between them. “Logistically, I don’t know how this will work. You’re really short.”

She suppressed a burst of indignation at the height comment. He wasn’t really wrong. “Oh. Well….”

“I could pick you up,” he suggested with a grin, but he sounded like he was only half-joking.

“We’ll keep that in our back pocket for now.” Veta looked around her quarters and spotted the bed in the corner. “Ah. Here,” she said, pulling out of his embrace and grabbing his biceps. She walked him backwards towards the bed, looking around his shoulder to make sure she didn’t accidentally shove him into a desk.

“I can give you directions, if—”

“Shush.”

His calves finally met the edge of the bed and she motioned for him to sit. It creaked under his weight, but held firm. “There. Much better now,” she said, smiling at him. He was still a few inches taller than her even while seated, but there was no need to pull a muscle in her neck to kiss him now, at least. She cupped a hand around his jaw and pressed her mouth into his. His lips upturned in a smile and he reached an arm around her back to pull her close, separating his knees to get his massive legs out of the way.

Veta breathed out a sigh as she felt the tension drain from her body, and she could feel Fred relaxing in her grip, too. He shuddered when she smoothed her hand around his neck, and she was careful to avoid the neural port at the base of his skull. It was cool and hard and felt entirely out of place on his warm skin.

“How much time do you have?” she whispered over his mouth.

She felt him shrug as he nudged her nose with his. “Next round of Wargames isn’t for a few hours yet.”

She pulled away to look at him. “What about all that deployment paperwork you were complaining about?”

His lips twitched. “Technically they’re John’s job now,” he said, though he didn’t sound serious. Fred shot a look towards her door, deliberating for a moment, then looked back at her. “But I still have some free time.”

“Good. We can get cozy then.” She climbed up onto the bed and curled up into his lap. Straddling him would probably be easier, but she wasn’t sure if he’d be ready for something quite so racy. She wasn’t sure if _she_ was.

“This okay?” she asked, looking up at him.

He responded by kissing her, so she grinned and wrapped her arms around his neck. It was a little more awkward at this angle, but it was definitely more preferable.

Fred’s fingers grazed under the hem of her shirt as he moved to encircle her in his arms, his palm skimming her back. It was her turn to shudder, and he broke away from her again to press his face into her hair. “And don’t you have work to do?” he murmured, voice sounding hoarse. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“I’m my own boss,” she replied into his neck. “Mostly. And my team doesn’t actually _exist_ , so I technically don’t have deadlines.”

“Technically,” he repeated, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“If technicallys keep _you_ from doing paperwork, then that’s a good enough excuse for me.”

“I guess I’m not setting a good example.” Fred shifted on the bed, pulling them down across the mattress so that she wasn’t balled up in his lap. She made a handhold out of his uniform while he moved around and got comfortable, then smiled when she let her legs stretch out beside his.

“Told you you were a bad influence.”

His soft laughter was muffled into the pillow. She wedged herself closer into his side and slid a hand up the back of his shirt, settling her arm along his spine and running her thumb idly over the bumps of his scarred skin. Fred pressed into her with a contented sigh, and they both let their technicallys keep them off the hook a while longer.


	7. Fred/Veta + Driving

Veta was made explicitly aware of how little Fred thought of civilian ground vehicles by the constant stream of muttered curses coming from the underside of the car. **  
**

“Why?” he asked nobody, pressing his heels into the dirt road to push himself deeper under the vehicle. The thing was a clean, simple, standard issue ATV that, when used by civilians, presented little issue. The combined ridiculous driving techniques and significant weight of a Spartan, however, was a reliable way of destroying the rear suspension on anything lighter than a military-grade Warthog. To Fred’s credit, he’d managed to avoid disaster for an entire ninety-seven minutes. That streak had promptly been cut by the unpaved roads that wound through the jungles of Trevelyan’s south-eastern landmass—and his own hubris, though she kept that to herself.

Veta swatted at a beetle that had landed on her arm. She was soaked through with sweat and covered with a significant amount of mud—also Fred’s fault. His driving style ranged from Fleeing Nuclear Annihilation to a comparatively calmer Old Lady With A Death Wish. When the ATV withstood such abuse, they were never late for anything. But it rarely did.

“I’m sure we could sweet talk Mendez into getting us an M12,” she said to him, watching as he shimmied out from under the carriage of the vehicle. He was even more caked in mud than she was. It wasn’t the first time they’d shown up to dinner wearing half of the forest on their clothes. Luckily she’d learned her lesson from previous excursions and had her Sunday best folded and stored away in a garbage bag, along with Fred’s things. “I’m sure he’d smuggle one in for you if it stopped us from having weekly roadside… incidents.”

“Just once,” he muttered, sitting up and leaning against the side of the car. “I’d like to drive without having to stop for field repairs. These things—” He slapped the side of the ATV. “Are garbage.”

“Sucks you can’t abuse your Spartan status to requisition military ground craft anymore,” she mused. Being second in command of security on Trevelyan didn’t exactly make him a civilian, but he certainly didn’t have the same pull when it came to ordering the UNSC’s biggest, shiniest toys.

“It’s not abuse,” he said, wiping his hands on his pants. All it did was smear mud everywhere, and when he rubbed at his cheek with a wrist it smudged all over his face. “Driving around in tissue paper is a safety hazard.”

“Kelly and Linda don’t seem to have any issues.”

He made a face at her but didn’t bother to defend himself. She offered him a hand up and he took it despite it being completely unnecessary, smearing mud all over her in the process. He collected the winch and jack from the ground and threw them both in the back with more force than was strictly needed. She threw him a towel and he wiped the worst off of himself while she did the same. It didn’t help much.

“I can drive, if you like,” she offered, tossing the soiled towel in the back next to the winch and jack. He shot her a look from over the roll bar of the trunk. “I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring your backseat driving.”

“I can handle it.”

“He says for the fiftieth time.”

“It hasn’t been fif—” Fred paused to frown, then walked around to the driver side door. “I can handle it,” he repeated. Veta smiled to herself and said nothing as she climbed into the passenger seat.

“So what’s our excuse this time?” she asked as he started the ignition and pulled it into drive. The vehicle groaned loudly enough that she thought the back end might collapse all over again, but then the wheels rolled forward as Fred nudged the gas, and she sighed in relief. At least he was making an effort to go slow now. “Not that they’ll buy it.” She looked between the two of them, covered in dirt, leaves, and sweat, and grinned. “Spontaneous romantic detour in the jungles around Paxopolis, maybe?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He brushed a clump of clayish mud from his shirt. “This horrible ATV is a much better place for any detours. I’m not taking my clothes off in the mud unless I have to.”

She made a show of looking at the limited leg room the seats allowed for. “Is that an offer, Lieutenant?”

His ears went red and he avoided her eye, but there was a smile creeping up his face. “We’re getting off-topic,” he said, voice grim and sober with the burden of their current predicament. “We were discussing explanations for our tardiness.”

“Excuses,” she corrected him. “If you’re lying about why we’re late, it’s an excuse.”

“I don’t think that’s—” He jerked the wheel to remain on course, and the vehicle screeched in response. “Fine. It’s an excuse.”

“Glad we’re on the same page. I was thinking a sentinel attack. No counter-evidence since they disintegrate everything. Besides us, obviously. And they produced a localised EMP that cut off our ability to call for backup. But we fended them off with our—uh, weapons that they also disintegrated.”

He raised a brow. “My pistol’s still in our quarters, and we’d be heading back to base to make a report if that were the case. They won’t buy that.”

“Then work with me.” She checked her watch. “Because we’re twenty-three minutes late and I’m positive Ash and Olivia have eaten all of my food. Unless you want to admit you destroyed the suspension again.”

“Can’t.” He tested the give of the coils with a few jerks of the gas, easing them over a rise in the road. “Kelly has money on it. And I didn’t destroy it.”

“Different names for the same rose, Fred.”

He shrugged off her objection. “The sentinel angle is possible,” he admitted. “Need to rework the details.”

“We’ve got ten minutes,” she said, watching the trees thin above them as they got closer to the edge of the forest. “So do your best.”


	8. Jerome & Isabel + Reading

Instead of sleeping, he read.

He didn’t want to sleep. They’d all just spent thirty years in the freezer, and now he was being told to rest for seven more hours. Or five now, technically. Still.

His body ached and his skin crawled and itched with the effects of long-term cryo. Distant, ancient memories of filo pastry baking in the communal stove his mother shared with four other women had surfaced when he’d stripped down in the medical bay and had what felt like two layers of skin flake off onto the tiled floor. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. He’d never liked filo pastry anyway.

To distract himself from the phantom texture of baklava in his mouth, he directed his attention back to the holopad in his hand. He’d asked Isabel for a truncated version of the twenty-nine years of war they’d missed out on in the hopes that it would help them with their current enemy. What technological advancements had the UNSC made? What strategies had they employed to defend humanity from the Covenant? How the hell had they _won?_

“You’re wallowing,” a disembodied voice said quietly to his right. He flinched in surprise and let the holopad rest back on his stomach.

“I’m self-educating,” he corrected Isabel, then looked towards the holographic stand in the corner of their quarters. Her tangerine avatar pulsed softly into existence, her arms crossed.

“You’ve read the entry about the fall of Reach eleven times in the past two hours.” Her brows drew together. “And I know a thing or two about wallowing.”

He minimized the holopad to slip it into his pocket and sat up, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on Douglas’ bunk above him. The floor was cold beneath his feet. He felt cold all the time now. And itchy, god dammit. He resisted the urge to scratch at his arms.

“You couldn’t have done anything,” Isabel continued, watching him walk over to his locker and put on socks. “It was a steamroll from all the reports I’ve read. And that’s only the official public debrief. I don’t have access to any classified UNSC reports. It was probably a lot worse in reality.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” he said dryly, and she looked away, her avatar vibrating in embarrassment.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright. Nothing we can do about it now anyway.”

“‘We’?”

He gestured to his sleeping teammates. “Us.” He nodded his head towards the door as he slipped on a sweater. “Let’s go outside before I wake them.”

Isabel nodded and winked out of existence. He slid on a pair of shoes and palmed open the door, crossing his arms as the cold air of the corridor hit him.

Jerome made his way to one of the rec rooms close by and was relieved to see it empty. A skeleton crew meant there wasn’t a lot of time for relaxing. Another reason they shouldn’t be sleeping. There was too much work to be done.

Isabel popped back up in the middle of room. “I have something much more pressing if you’re in the reading mood,” she said, seeming to divine his thoughts.

“Like what?”

She waved her hand and the SOP symbol appeared in front of her. “An updated version of the health and safety regulations for naval vessels. And firearms handling. And armour maintenance. And—well, the _Spirit of Fire_ is one massive breach in UNSC OSH protocol. Especially where the Spartans are concerned.”

He sat down on a nearby couch. Isabel was smiling, so he decided a roll of his eyes wouldn’t be too unprofessional. “I’ll pass for now.”

“I’ll subject you to the revisions once the rest of Red Team is awake.” She paused for a moment, her mouth crinkling up. Serina had always been expressive, but she’d also been a military AI. Isabel was even more civilian and open than her. It reminded him briefly of Halsey, making him wonder what had happened to her. “You said ‘us’; ‘we’.”

“I did.”

“All three of you use plural pronouns like that a lot.”

“We do,” he agreed, his mouth twitching. “Why?”

“I don’t have a lot of exposure to other military units, but—the marines stationed on this ship don’t do that. Naval officers don’t. The Captain does, but that’s understandable. It’s oddly collectivist, even within the UNSC.”

He carefully considered the question she didn’t ask. He didn’t know how much of the Spartan Program had been revealed to the public. Isabel had identified them as Spartans, and as a logistics AI on a remote research outpost he doubted she’d have access to classified Section Three programs unless the UNSC had revealed some details about it to the general public. She’d also been interfaced with him, which meant she knew the extent of the augmentations he’d gone through. Most of them had been ordered to minimize contact with all non-essential personnel for that very reason. But that had been thirty years ago.

“‘Hunt together or starve alone’,” he said finally. “Our DIs drilled that into us. Sometimes it bleeds into casual conversation.”

He could _see_ her thinking. She seemed to curl up when she did, as if drawing herself together would help her understand better. “I’ve never talked to a Spartan before. Some of the scientists at Lamb said you guys were just ONI propaganda.”

His answer was a shrug. Isabel continued to stand there, thinking, so he pulled out the holopad from his pocket and expanded the viewing window. The Reach article she’d sent him popped back up, a globe of glass and fire burning on the screen. He could pick out the continents beneath the ash, the forms as familiar as his hands. Big Horn River and the surrounding forest wasn’t visible, buried beneath smoke and boiling rock.

It blinked out of view suddenly, replaced by a wall of text. The Standard Operating Procedures symbol came into view. He smiled again. “I thought you said we’d wait.”

“Not if you’re going to stew like that,” she responded. “It’s not healthy.”

“You couldn’t have done anything either, you know,” he told her, looking up. Her avatar froze and flickered.

“That is where our experiences diverge, Commander,” she said after a stretch of silence. “I was fully awake when my home was burning to the ground. I _could_ have done something.”

“And now you’re stewing. It’s not healthy.”

Her jaw clenched. She didn’t say anything, and he wasn’t sure how to fill the silence. So he looked back down at the health and safety manual she’d uploaded onto his pad instead. He read the words without retaining them. Reach’s fiery horizon has been burned into his eyes, making the words blur on the screen.

“We’ll figure this out,” Isabel finally whispered. He was grateful for the distraction and looked back up at her. She was sitting down now, with her arms resting on her knees.

“The health and safety revisions, or the Banished?”

She smiled, though she looked like she was fighting it. “Both.”

“How about we tackle OSH first,” he suggested. “Seems a bit more straightforward.”

“You say that,” she began. “But it’s been through three revisions since you’ve been sleeping. You’ve got five hundred and twelve pages to get through.”

“Maybe I’ll just suit up then.”

“Not until you’ve read the armour maintenance section.”

He sighed, mostly to cover a laugh, and Isabel wiggled her fingers to bring up some bullet points for him to look through. She did him the enormous favour of reading aloud, and he returned it by doing his best to listen.


	9. Osman/Cassandra-075 + Chatting

She heard footsteps on the sand but didn’t open her eyes. She could tell by the long, silent gait who it was. **  
**

“Salt’s hard to get out of clothes,” was the greeting Cassandra got.

“You say that every time.”

“Managing UNSC operational budgets gives a woman perspective.”

She did open her eyes at that. The tide rolled in up to her thighs, mercifully cool, and then receded just as quickly. The sand was forgiving enough that resting on her elbow wasn’t too terribly painful, so she rolled onto her side carefully to look up at her visitor.

Serin wasn’t wearing her work clothes or her work face. A pair of sweats rolled up to her knees and a plain t-shirt was all she wore, but she wouldn’t fool anyone with how straight her shoulders were. Cassandra patted the sand and she sat down, careful to keep away from the water.

“Off work early,” she murmured, looking up at the stars. She knew the constellations of this planet well enough to know it was past midnight by now.

“I’m still on the clock, technically,” Serin said with a small smile. “My escort just thinks I’m taking a really, really long shit.”

Cassandra laughed and looked back towards the prefabs of the rehabilitation centre and spotted the window Serin must have climbed out of.

“How long you got?”

“Kid’s pretty green,” she said. “So probably another twenty minutes if I’m lucky.”

“You wasted time changing.”

“I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

Cass drew circles in the sand and considered her words, wondering how this conversation would be going if Osman had shown up instead of Serin, and decided she appreciated the effort.

“Heard rehab is going well.”

A non-starter. She suffered the small talk anyway. “As well as it can be,” she said, giving a pointed look to the walker parked a few feet away on the grass. “The last few rounds of PT have been pretty intense, and the medication they gave me gives me blisters. The water helps.”

“I can look into it,” Serin said, as she knew she would.

“That’s not the reason I told you.”

“I know, I’m just—I know.” She blew out a breath. “Hard to find good company these days. I want to help you.”

“Ah, that’s why you’re keeping me around,” she replied. She got the pleasure of a panicked look and heated cheeks from Serin before she revealed her grin, and got a smack on the shoulder for it.

“Enough with that. I get too much doublespeak from everyone else.”

“Is that why you’re here? For the engaging conversation?”

“Well I didn’t drive all the way out here just for a ‘hey’.”

“Technically you didn’t drive at all—”

Cass was interrupted with a kiss. It was extremely awkward with their combined heights and conflicting angles, but Serin managed a small, quick press of her lips before ducking back and sitting up straight, just in case anyone had observed that horrific display of humanity from her on accident.

Cassandra laid back on the sand and grinned to herself. “Came here to get laid, then.”

“Not on my time schedule,” she responded with a sigh. “I’ll settle for this.”

“Good, because I’m way too sore to move.”

Serin laughed and Cass relaxed further into the sand. She saw the other woman’s legs stretch out beside her and reached out to curl an arm under Serin’s calf. Her fingers found the surgical scars than ran down her shins and heard Serin sigh again.

“ETA?” Cass asked.

“Eighteen minutes now.”

“Any specific topic you wanted to cover?”

Serin shrugged, and they both fell silent. Cass continued to run her fingers along her skin and looked back up at the stars. The water came up again, washing along Serin’s legs and up to Cassandra’s waistband.

“How long are you staying?” Cass asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

“Another day if I’m lucky. This is only a pit stop for us.”

She nodded. It was the answer she expected.

“You can come along with us anytime. I’ll make it work.”

“I don’t want to leave before I’m done with all this,” she said, waving her hand at the prefab behind them. “I’m not going to half-ass recovery and then re-injure myself. I just want to be done with all this.”

“There’s a spot waiting for you, on any ship you want. Just say the word.”

Cass smiled again. “I know.”

“Good.”

They spent the rest of Serin’s seventeen minutes in silence. Serin’s hand found its way into Cass’s hair and they both listened to the sea. Talking they could do anytime. Sitting like this was a luxury, and she wouldn’t waste it talking about work or rehab or anything else. This was more than enough.


	10. Fred/Veta + Coffee

She was late, but she also had coffee.

Lopis stumbled out of her car and kicked the door closed as she tried not to spill her breakfast onto the lawn. A baby-faced woman in a patrol uniform greeted her with a smile that was too upbeat for how early in the morning it was.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading up to their crime scene. “Lieutenant?” Veta asked, holding her palm high above her head to indicate her subject’s obscene height.

“Just inside, ma’am,” the woman responded. “I’ve alerted him that you arrived.”

“He’ll have thought of something snarky to say by now then,” she muttered as she trudged up the steps and pushed into the home. The smell of blood and latex greeted her immediately. She took a strong pull of coffee and walked to the doorway red-marked with a holographic beacon. She noticed the other thresholds had been marked in shades of green, yellow and orange already, and felt doubly guilty that she’d been late enough to miss the uniforms cataloguing the building.

She found Fred in the house’s living room, frowning at a holopad in his hand. She knew he’d heard her enter, but she still cleared her throat to get his attention. He looked up, brow raised, and she offered him one of the coffees in her hand.

“I told you to stop answering my pager,” she chastised.

He looked around the room in a very well somebody has to do your job sort of way and sipped at his coffee. She waved her hand in dismissal and accepted the holopad that he’d handed her.

“So what’s on the agenda for today?”

“That,” he said, nodding beside him. She looked over his shoulder and saw their very dead homeowner sprawled out on the ground. She immediately registered the obvious head wound and saw an M4A pistol lying near him, partially covered in blood

“The casing of the bullet stovepiped during ejection and there are hard burn marks on the grip, which might be why it was left here,” Fred commented, then tapped at the screen in her hand. “Which I wrote down.”

“Of course.” He’d taken a lot of notes, actually. He wasn’t a detective, but he did have the advantage of tagging along on a lot of her investigations and possessed superhuman situational awareness in addition to a bunch of other talents that made him her enduring choice of investigative partner. One of which was taking organised and detailed notes.

“Maybe I’ll just sit back and let you do this one,” she said, looking up with a grin. He smiled back at the compliment.

“Don’t tempt me. This is a lot more fun than helping Mendez rework the defensive zoning plans in the new division they’re building outside the city.”

“Don’t let the spooks hear you say that,” she muttered, scrolling through the list of injuries he’d logged on their victim. “They’re everywhere, and they love cooking up bad press for Spartans now that you guys aren’t active anymore.”

Fred took a deep breath and completely ignored her. “Man, do I ever miss the smell of blood and dead bodies—”

“Uh, ma’am?”

Veta looked up and saw the same baby-faced officer that had greeted her outside, now drained of all colour in her cheeks and eyeing Fred with a great deal of apprehension. “Detective Samson is outside and says she has something for you.”

“Thank you, Tams,” Veta said, quickly reading off the woman’s last name stitched to her chest. “We’ll be out shortly.”

The girl left immediately and Fred laughed quietly behind her. She shook her head and gave him back his notes, then lead the way back out of the house.

“You need to work on your sarcasm,” she tossed over her shoulder. “You’ll scare the shit out of my team.”

“Who said I was being sarcastic?”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t respond. She sipped on her coffee some more and decided his horrific sense of humour was another bullet point on her long list of why she still enjoyed working with him so much.


	11. Fred + Kids

“Over here,” the boy pointed. His foot marked an invisible score line that only he was privy to. “I’ll be goalie.”

Fred looked down at the ball he’d been given. The foam skin was ripping, and the inside of it was lumpy, but it was still about a third the size of the kid. He wondered where he’d gotten in from.

“Just throw it,” the boy called. “And stand up!”

“It’ll go over your head,” he replied. The boy frowned. As a compromise, he rolled to his knees and made a motion to wind up the ball. The boy’s stance went wide, and he held out his arms, his face scrunched in concentration.

Fred decided an underhand toss would cause the least amount of potential damage and threw the ball. It skimmed about a foot above the ground for several metres before rolling to the floor and going straight between the boy’s feet, right threw his score line.

“Hey!” He turned and ran for it. “Too low!”

“Sorry,” he called, watching the six year-old run wobbling and fearless towards the ball. It rolled past crates and parked lifts in the holding bay, and a few crewmen frowned at the unruly child zig-zagging around the ship’s hangar. It couldn’t be helped, though. There were only so many ways to keep kids distracted from whatever horror they’d witnessed on their invaded homeworld a few hours ago, and most of them involved games of toss.

The ball bumped up against a crate and stopped by a group of doctors watching the interaction. Completely unfazed by the cast on his arm, the boy reached down to grab the tuft of ripped skin sticking up from the foam ball and waving it triumphantly over his head. “I got it!” he called, and Fred nodded in acknowledgement. He waved the boy back over.

He scrunched the ball in his hands and moved to go back, then stopped to look up at one of the nurses speaking to him. The clang and clatter of the bay made it difficult to hear what she’d said, but Fred recognised Halsey’s voice anywhere, and then she bent down to break away from the throng of doctors to smile down at the boy and point at his cast.

Fred jumped to his feet, feeling his throat close up. “Santos!” he barked, not knowing why, and the boy jumped and stared wide-eyed across the bay at him.

“Get back over here,” he ordered, pointing to the space in front of him. Santos ran back without a second look at Halsey and skidded to a halt in front of him a few moments later, huffing a little.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” the boy mumbled, managing only to look up to Fred’s navel. “I won’t let it past this time.”

“That’s—“ He knelt down and held out a hand for the ball. The boy wouldn’t look at him, so he took it from his grip. “It’s okay. You aren’t in trouble.”

Santos nodded numbly. He clenched his jaw and forced a light tone. “Go find your goal post,” he said as gently as he could.

“Ok.” The boy wandered back to his score line, his shoes sliding across the deck to follow the lines of fused titanium. The sound scraped against Fred’s ears, but he only said:

“Ready?”

The shock of being yelled at already over, the boy grinned, spun around, and let his tiny limbs spring out in a ready stance. Fred relaxed a little.

He threw a little higher this time, aiming for Santos’ centre of mass—gently, slowly—and the boy managed to catch it for a moment before it slid from his fumbling arms and bounced to the ground. As he giggled and dug his fingers into the old foam, Fred looked over his bent shoulders and saw Halsey was watching them. Her eyes were heavy with meaning, and the unfamiliar panic crept up his throat again.


	12. John + Granola

He watched the boy fidget, then immediately corrected himself. Man. John was eighteen now, even if only by a few weeks.

Still, he was uncharacteristically twitchy, and Hood held up a hand when he clenched his fist hard by his side. The boy—man, John—paused in the middle of his after-action report.

“Sir?”

“Are you quite alright, Chief?”

“Of course, sir,” he replied immediately.

Hood frowned. John had only taken enough time to change into his blues and get his lip stitched in medical before coming to the bridge, but otherwise he didn’t look visibly injured or ill. The only thing out of place was a few day’s worth of chin fuzz and hastily brushed hair that had whorled up at the back.

He shifted his weight onto his right leg, and Hood’s frown deepened. “Do you have to use the restroom or something son?”

“No, sir.”

Most of the time John’s laconicism was refreshing. Right now he found it exasperating.

“Then why are you fidgeting?”

“I’m n—” John paused and caught himself in the fib. “I’m sorry, sir, I’ll stop. I didn’t realise.”

“That is not what I asked.”

John’s back straightened. “Sir! I haven’t eaten in awhile, and I’m feeling a little lightheaded. Nothing to worry about.”

“What’s ‘awhile’?”

“About seven hours, sir. I believe,” he added.

Hood nodded and walked over to his desk. He could feel John’s eyes on his back as he opened the top drawer and grabbed a granola bar from underneath a pad of paper. The Chief looked confused as he walked back over, and then he held his hand out to the kid. “Take it,” he ordered, making sure the offer was not negotiable. “It’s got chocolate chips in it. It’s good.”

John paused for a split second before reaching for the bar. “Thank you, sir,” he said, peeling the packaging open with far more grace than Hood was sure he usually used.

“Eat up quickly, son. I’d like the rest of that report.”

Given an out to scarf it down, John did just that, giving him a look of gratitude above a mouthful of chocolate granola.


	13. Blue Team + Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When he was younger he was the one with the jokes and riddles that kept the team’s spirits high. Something had hardened in him over the years…as it had in them all. But with Will something special had been lost._
> 
> Blue Team tries to remember the stories Will used to tell.

“Tell the story,” Fred said, turning to Kelly. “You’re better at it.”

Her head tilted, first left, then right. Considering. Then she cleared her throat.

“It was Will’s,” she began. “Not anyone else’s. He’d never write any of them down. The DIs would steal the pages if he did.” Kelly breathed out slowly. “What version?”

“I can’t remember all of them.”

“I can’t either.”

“I like the one where the egg speaks,” Linda interjected.

“Okay.”

She felt eyes on her. Spartans in S-Deck all around, and the Captain, too. It was wrong to tell other people; the story wasn’t for anybody but themselves. But it had been years since it had been told, and they were all starting to forget. She refused to write them down. Will never had.

“There was a blind woman that walked a field,” she said. “With thick reeds, big around as a finger.” Kelly held up her index, flexing her pale knuckle. “The kind that would stick you good if you let them. In her hand she held an egg. She was used to walking and feeling for her way, but the reeds were too thick in this field.

“Birds overhead sang to her, told her the way. The egg in her hand was delicate. Her fingers would sink into the shell if she flexed them, so she had to be careful. It would speak, too—it would say terrible things. It could see, and told her what was in the field. The blind woman ignored the egg and listened to the birds. They told her the way to go.

“She pushed away the reeds, and they would cut her hand. The birds assured her they would lick her cuts clean—she just needed to get to the other side of the field.”

Kelly paused, trying to remember the details. She looked to Fred and Linda. They’d both gone still, but Fred nodded to her when he met her eyes.

The others—the Spartans, the Captain, some of the deck crew—were silent, waiting for her to speak again.

“Kurt would fill in the gaps,” she said, feeling a growing pressure in her chest. “The things Will would miss. I can’t remember them.”

There was a long silence. Fred and Linda couldn’t remember. It had been so long since they’d heard the story.

Lasky cleared his throat, the first break in sound beyond the whirring of air filters and the beeping of equipment boards. She looked to him, and found him smiling.

“Do you remember how it ended?”

“Will always changed it,” she said, her mouth twitching. “He couldn’t decide how he wanted it to end.”

Kelly took another deep breath. She’d told this much of it already. She had to finish it. It wouldn’t be one of Will’s endings—it was only Will’s story when he told it—but it would be her best try.

“She could hear the birds go silent. Not all at once—one at a time, and sometimes she could feel them crash into the reeds beside her. The egg had told her what was in the field. All it had done was frighten her, so she’d ignored it. But it spoke more loudly now, and the birds were becoming difficult to hear.

“She couldn’t complete her journey without the birds. A few were still left, and she had to run to keep up with them. The reeds dug into her skin, deep gashes in her body. She had to be careful holding the egg, because she’d do the same to it if she wasn’t gentle. It was held close to her chest so the reeds wouldn’t catch it, and it yelled at her to run. She didn’t want to trust it, but the birds were far ahead of her now, still speaking, telling her which way to go. Some of them were screaming.”

“Why was she trying to cross the field?” A Spartan asked, somewhere behind her. She’d gone silent, trying to remember.

Kelly shrugged. “Will never said. I don’t even know if he knew.”

“Did she make it across?” Another Spartan.

“Sometimes. Not always. If all the birds died, then no. She couldn’t cross it by herself. Sometimes she would break the egg, to keep it quiet, and the yoke would run down her fingers and burn her skin like plasma. Sometimes the egg wouldn’t speak at all. Sometimes she would be crossing a river instead.

“But it was always a blind woman, and it was always an egg. It was always birds. And at least one would always die.”


	14. Osman/Cassandra-075 + Parties

“You may want to do a better job of acting casual,” BB informed her, his pompous accent emanating from her collar. “Everyone is noticing.”

“I define what is and is not casual,” she replied, more to get a rise out of him than any actual sentiment behind it.

“I see your promotion has already gone to your head.”

“Obviously.” She ducked into her glass to keep from making eye contact with General Hogan, who seemed keen on catching her attention. “BB,” she whispered around her scotch.

“Yes?”

“Where is she?”

“Walking through the right-most starboard doorway, currently.”

Serin waited a few seconds before turning—slowly—and looking up from her tumbler to see Cass standing near the back of the Officer’s Club. She took in the room immediately, found an alternative exit, and then finally looked at Osman.

“Casual,” BB reminded her. She responded by rubbing the heel of her palm on her collar where he was pinned and walked over to Cass, making sure only she saw her warm, welcoming smile.

“You made it.”

“I think I underdressed,” was the first thing Cass said to her, looking down at her outfit. Slacks and a fitted shirt, Osman realised they were nearly wearing the same thing.

It was stupid to be excited about that, surely.

“If you did then I did as well.” She didn’t offer Cass a hand as she walked further into the room, knowing better by now. She must be having a good day, because she only had her walker with her.

Or she didn’t want to draw attention to herself with a wheelchair. Osman’s fingers tightened on her glass and she consciously relaxed them.

“You’ve got a jacket, at least,” Cass replied, though she didn’t sound particularly concerned. “Find us a place to sit.”

Serin made a path for her to a pair of leather armchairs. Where she’d been ducking into her glass before, now she cast about the room, daring anyone to linger on Cassandra. Nobody did, and General Hogan suddenly seemed to lose all interest in starting a conversation.

“Sit down, stop playing bodyguard. I’m fine.” Cass tapped her shoulder on the way past, and Serin turned to follow her to the other chair.

She sank deep into the leather and watched Cass settle herself beside her. She was taller than Serin, and now sitting down it was plain to see. Her black coiled hair was pulled back tight and the excess was tucked at the base of her skull. Active duty or no, she hadn’t lost a hold on the grooming standards Mendez had drilled into them.

“You look good,” Serin finally said. She could see Cass’s hand shake as she gripped the arm of the leather chair.

“I second her assessment,” BB said from her collar. “It is a pleasure, Cassandra.”

Cass raised a brow. “Didn’t realise you brought a third wheel along.”

“A necessity.” Serin’s eyes flicked around the room, watching the officers mill about, speaking in what they thought were hushed voices. “Security Council nonsense masquerading as an Officer’s gala. I apologise for the lack of privacy.”

Cassandra’s lips twitched. “I shouldn’t be surprised, sitting with CINCONI. Congratulations, by the way.”

“It only cost a pound of flesh.” Her hand found its way to her pocket, where a vial of ginger sat pressed into her thigh. It was warm from her body heat. “But thank you,” she added, seeing Cass’s faltering expression. “It’s got a lot of perks.”

“Yes,” BB interjected. “She now believes she can ignore me outright.”

“Your job isn’t to chat. It’s to listen.”

“Oh, I hope that’s not my job,” Cass said. “Please don’t make me socialise.”

“I don’t think anyone will come near us,” Serin said, grinning at her. “So rest easy, esteemed colleague.”

“Ah, that’s what I am now?”

“Calling a rose by its real name would cause a stir.” Serin sipped her scotch. “Care for a drink?”

“As long as you get it for me.”

—-

The gala went on a great deal longer than either of them wanted to attend, and Cass was the only reason she had an excuse to leave early. Serin supposed she could simply leave when she pleased either way, but this had better optics, as BB put it, much to her chagrin. She hadn’t invited Cassandra as her plus one so she had an out when she needed it.

They switched out the noisy Officer’s Club for her private quarters. Cass sat at the edge of her bed, her starched white button-down now loose at the collar. Serin had dispensed of hers altogether and paced around the room in her undershirt.

“Why don’t you sit?” Cass asked, watching her sip at her fresh glass of scotch.

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”

She opened her mouth to reply that she likely knew the reason Hogan had wanted to speak with her, then paused, remembering the promise she made. “Work,” she said instead.

Cass raised a brow. “It’s not that strict of a rule. You can talk about it with me if it calms your mind.”

Osman shook her head, smiling faintly. “No good deed of yours goes unpunished. We’d be here for hours if I started.”

“That’s not as bad a threat as you think it is,” Cass replied. “I may zone out, but I enjoy listening to you speak.”

“Then I’ll speak of pleasant things, not upper echelon military politics.” Osman set her glass down and sat beside Cass. Now that they were no longer in front of prying eyes—even ones purposefully averted on fear of death—she grabbed the hand she’d seen shaking earlier and smoothed a thumb over it. “I’m glad you came.”

“I am, too,” Cass whispered. “Thought about bailing.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I missed you more than I dislike social functions.” She felt Cassandra’s mouth by her ear now, and a shiver ran up her spine. Serin closed her eyes and let out a breath, nodding.

“That’s a good reason,” she replied, annoyed that she already sounded breathless.

Cass laughed quietly, her breath blowing on her skin, and now she was properly ruined. “You’re easy to distract.”

“A testament to your talent,” she said, with effort. “Not my lack of fortitude.”

Much later, she was staring up at the ceiling with Cass curled into her side. She’d turned up the temperature in the room and kept the blankets tucked close around them both, but there was enough space underneath the covers for her to run her fingers along Cassandra’s shoulder. Her surgical scars far outnumbered Serin’s, and many of them were still fresh. It made her blood boil if she thought about it for too long, so she tapped her shoulder instead.

“Still alive?”

“Mm,” Cass hummed. “I’m in a great deal of pain, so yes.”

When Serin didn’t respond to that, she opened her eyes and smiled. Her hand reached up and smoothed away the knot at Osman’s brow. “Don’t fret,” she said. “It was worth it.”

“If it’s any consolation, my shoulder, arm and hand will be sore tomorrow. Haven’t done this in a while.”

Cass grinned into Serin’s shoulder. “I might make you do it again, so have some ibuprofen ready.”

“I’ll just drink more.”

That got a laugh out of her, and Cass settled her arm across Serin’s waist. “Thought drinking made your vertigo worse.”

“Everything does at this point,” Serin replied. “At least this way I get a buzz going.”

“It’s settled then.” Cass closed her eyes. “Go to sleep. We’ll assess damages in the morning.”

“You’ll still be here in the morning?”

“A few more, at least. Your diplomatic functions line up well with my recovery days sometimes.”

“That’s good to hear. You’re comfortable?”

“As I’ll ever be. Go to sleep.”

“We can go to medical whenever you need—”

“Shhhhhhh.” Cass pressed a finger to her mouth. “Stop talking.”

“Thought you liked hearing me talk.”

“I just said that so you’d have sex with me.”

Serin shook her head. “You’d fit right in at S-I.”

“I’m not this charming with most people. Now go to sleep.”

She finally relented. Cass fell asleep beside her almost immediately, her breathing evening out into a gentle lull that was soothing to listen to. It was rare that Serin didn’t sleep alone, and it was one of the few things she desperately missed about being a Spartan. You could always hear somebody else close by.

She pushed the thought out of her head and focused on Cass, making sure not to jostle her as she settled deeper into her pillow. She’d lied to Cass before, she mused as she drifted off to sleep. Her arm already hurt like hell.


	15. Fred/Veta + Nightmares

He has to concentrate so his fingers don’t make dents in the window sill. He rocks back and forth, head between outstretched arms gripping the flimsy wood panelling, and tries to keep his breathing deep, even and quiet.

He manages the first two. Each one comes out as a breathless sob and they sound incredibly loud in the dark of the hotel room. Fred folds his arms in front of the window and rests his head overtop them. If he can’t keep quiet, he can at least muffle the noise.

His fingers flex into fists, relax, flex again. He should go down to the gym. No one would be in there this late at night, and even if he couldn’t use most of the equipment, there would be something down there for him to hit, to sink his knuckles into. Or maybe he should go outside, run all the way down to the pier and hope that the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach leaves by the time he gets there.

Deep, even breaths. He doesn’t want to close his eyes because there’s fire and glass waiting for him when he does, but there’s a throbbing headache across his brow that makes his eyes swollen in their sockets. His mouth is filled with the acrid taste of spit that comes just before you vomit. Maybe he should do that instead, expel the memory physically until he no longer wakes up this way again.

He shivers from the air cycling through the room, blowing over a shirt stuck to his skin with sweat. He needs to do something. A run, a round of vomiting, a shower—something. If he continues to stand here he’ll make too much noise or break the window sill.

As he contemplates what to do he hears a change in Lopis’ breathing. She’s curled up on the other end of the bed, but he hears movement, too. A small creak of springs. He holds his breath to keep quiet and hopes she’ll fall back asleep. Once she does he has to leave, he can’t wake her ag—

“Fred?” Her voice is clear, not rasped by sleep. Maybe she’d been awake after all.

He lets out the breath he’d been holding, and it’s still the same half-sob he can’t quite keep down. He hopes it’s enough of a response.

More movement. He tracks the sound of her standing up, walking over to him. He wonders if she treads so loudly on purpose to let him know that she’s behind him. She doesn’t touch him, and speaks instead.

“Bad dream?”

He nods, his head rubbing against his arms, hoping she saw it. He doesn’t want to speak. The rot would move up from his gut into his throat, and he’d spent the better part of the last hour keeping it down.

She must have, because she takes another step up beside him, and her hand rests softly on his back. It rests there for a moment, and then her arm stretches across his back and he feels her forehead press against his shoulder. He can hear her breathing now, slow and soft. It’s calming.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He wets his lips, which are cracked and dry. He doesn’t know if he can speak yet, so he shakes his head once. He feels her nod into his shoulder.

“Come sit.”

She pulls on his arm and he’s surprised how easy it is for her to move him away from the window and toward the edge of the mattress. He sits down and lets his hands rest overtop his thighs. Lopis moves away to turn on a bedside lamp, and he winces at the sudden flood of light.

“Sorry, I can’t see anything.” She touches his arm in passing as she goes back to the window sill, but now she’s opening it and letting fresh air in the room. He watches her, distracting himself with tracking her movement around the room. She disappears into the bathroom and he can hear the sound of running water. A moment later she walks back out with a small paper cup and hands it to him. He takes it from her and drains it in one go as she sits down beside him. The water is cold and makes him shiver, but it dispels some of the nausea and his mouth doesn’t taste so acrid anymore.

She takes the cup from him once he’s done, but she only lets it drop onto the floor and grabs his hand instead. He looks down and sees his fingers shaking before she closes them in a fist beneath her own.

“I’m alright,” he finally says, but the words sound far away, as if he’s speaking from another room. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep anyway.” She presses her face to his shoulder again and breathes deeply. “Do you want to stay up or go back to bed?”

“I don’t know.” The desire to hit something is fading away, but he’s doubtful if he can fall back asleep now. “I usually—I usually go for runs when this happens.”

“Be quite a sight in your underwear.”

It’s enough to get his mouth to twitch into a smile. She squeezes his hand, still curled into a loose fist. “Well I’ll get you a fresh shirt either way. I can feel you shivering.”

Lopis stands up from the bed again and sets his hand back gently on his leg. The sudden absence of her warmth only sends another shudder through him as he watches her go to the hotel’s dresser and dig out one of his shirts.

She turns back and holds it out to him and he nods, pulling the one he’s wearing up over his head and then tossing it toward a laundry pile they’d began a few days before.

By the time he pulls the fresh one on she’s standing in front of him. It still seems strange to him to see her in anything other than uniform.

“A little better?” she asks.

“A little,” he replies, and she gives him a smile.

Lopis kisses him then. It’s gentle and slow, but he doesn’t move away and so she cups her hands to his face. He sags toward her, the tension in his shoulders cutting and a sharp breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding in escapes.

He feels her pull away, probably to ask if he’s alright again, but he doesn’t want her to retreat so he moves with her. She laughs softly and then leans into him, kissing him again.

He has to focus to keep his grip light on her waist, but he can still feel his hands shaking. He can’t tell why now, whether it’s still lingering from his nightmare or something else, but the flashes of blood and glass loosen their hold on his mind with each moment that she’s close. He can feel his focus narrowing, sharpening to a point that begins and ends with her kissing him. The world scales down and drops away. The totality of it feels dangerous—a temporary loss of his own sense of place. Anything beyond the ends of his nerves are inaccessible.

Perhaps that’s her intention and the weightless, singular linchpin that binds all focus to one point in space upon contact with another person is a more universal experience than he realises. It’s certainly an effective distraction if that’s the case.

Lopis finally breaks away to catch her breath, her forehead pressing against his. He registers then that he’s pulled them down onto the bed and she’s above him now, her weight resting on his ribs. He doesn’t remember moving.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and she finds that funny for some reason, because she’s laughing quietly again. He feels her mouth at his jaw, her lips whispering over his skin. Without her kissing him—without that linchpin—his focus is aimless, striking like lightning at any site where she’s touching him directly before quickly dissolving again before the next pulse of concentration hits him. He doesn’t want to think of it as a muscle twitch, because it’s not anything like one, but he doesn’t know how else to frame it.

“A little better?” she asks again.

He realises that he hasn’t thought of Reach for an entire minute. It comes bounding back now, but the blow of the memory lands more softly this time.

“A little,” he repeats back, but he’s smiling when he says it, and he’s sure she can hear it in his voice.


End file.
